We couldn’t be happier about how this First & Last interview with Nick Boserio turned out. Unless you have been off the grid you will be familiar with the output of this prolific Polar powerhouse. His high-octane footage is always memorable, and having recently delved into some of the farther-flung crevices of his back catalogue, it is obvious that it always has been. His energy and approach stand out, he is all-in, and his fully committed approach has taken him to many places and helped him navigate more hairy situations than most. We are glad we got to speak about a sizeable chunk of his story, from sleeping at Black Box on US missions before he had a board sponsor to recently exploring Japan with the Polar family.
Nick greeted our conversation with the same energy he approaches everything, dipping into his history and the present with open enthusiasm and a sense of gratitude for, and wonder at, his situation. He carefully considered everything we asked him and was an open book. We are, in turn, thoroughly grateful for the time he set aside to talk to us.
We navigated time zones, childcare, and kids bedtimes to make this interview happen but it came together without a hitch. I was aware that he was at home and had a window to speak once his kids were asleep but hadn’t considered his location. Towards the end of our conversation he started speaking to a delivery driver who had pulled up and was looking at him. It took a moment to understand that he had been sat in his driveway in a parked car the whole time to avoid upsetting the ecosystem at home, a kindness that had gifted us a lot of time to speak. While his wife waved the chicken wings at him from the doorway and joked about finishing them all we tied up the final questions and laughed about how many fathers would have spent time sat in driveways that evening. He got home while the wings were still warm…
words and interview by Jacob Sawyer. Nick Boserio at home in Melbourne. PH: Brittney Boserio
First time you saw skateboarding in real life?
I’m sure my brother skated first but the moment I clearly remember was when my cousin Colin came over. I don’t think he was much of a skater at the time but he had a stationary, non-moving ollie. He could do quite a high ollie standing still. My brother is the reason I started skating but we were both there when my cousin did this and I remember it vividly. He did this fucking ollie with the back wheels stuck in a crack in my parent’s backyard, I can still picture it in my head, it made a lasting impression on me. That’s the first thing I can remember now. He’s a sports teacher now, he’s still a very fit guy, he rides bikes and runs. This fucking standing ollie though, I feel like he sprung into the air.
First love before skateboarding?
There are two things that I fucking loved to do that probably translated into skating. Out the front of my parent’s house, when it was wet we would just run really fast and try and slide on our shoes down the hill for as long as possible. I know every kids likes to run and slide on their shoes but that was like an activity for me. I think I spent an unbalanced amount of time doing that. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this but I had a scooter too. Not the kind of scooters kids have now, this was a full size scooter like the Lime scooters, the mental ones that are electric. It was that size but for a child, it had kid-sized bike tyres on it. I would bang that thing down the hill and try and grind the middle of it on this kerb at the bottom, the same hill. It’s the same hill I would skate down to the bus stop to travel into the city when I could actually skate. So my first love before skateboarding was going down that hill in the front of my parent’s place but using worse versions of skating. I fucking loved sliding on my shoes down that hill, hahaha.
“when it was wet we would just run really fast and try and slide on our shoes down the hill for as long as possible…I think I spent an unbalanced amount of time doing that”
First skateboard?
My dad loved a bargain, so I got a New Deal Lincoln Ueda board from a sale bin at a shop in Garden City Shopping Centre, the shop was called City Beach. So a vert skaters board, it was brown and green, the first real board I got. This was set up with random hand-me-down trucks and wheels, Frankenstein shit from my brother. This was the first brand new deck I ever got though, a Lincoln Ueda board that was on sale, that thing was fucking big too for a kid. Brendon Sim was the guy who worked at the shop who we bought it from, the very same guy who ended up giving me the very first thing I ever won. It was a Globe electric toothbrush, I won it at some stupid promo thing that was held in the carpark of that shopping centre. The first free product I ever got for skating was a Globe electric toothbrush. My friend Corey couldn’t keep his hands off it, he wanted to look at it, dropped it, and it broke. I kept that thing pieced back together on the shelf in my room. Fucking Corey, he was a smart-arse too, he could kickflip before me and shit, he was like the local hero.
But Brendon [Sim] who gave me it was the person who taught me and my friend Harry [Clark] who I grew up skating with how to grip a board and stuff like that. City Beach weirdly enough was our local shop, after that Brendon ended up working at Momentum in Fremantle for about a decade, Momentum and Star Skate were the cool main shops in Fremantle and in the city. City Beach was a surf shop that had a skate section in it but because it was in this shopping centre the skate section was pretty big. Brendon was a pretty cool, charismatic guy so I think he made it feel like more of a real skate shop. That’s where I saw my first video playing you know what I mean? It was still a real skate shop but not the cool, sick, local scene one. It was just the shopping centre my mum went to on the weekends.
First magazine you ever saw?
I don’t remember the exact first mag but my parents got me a subscription to Transworld in the mega era of the early 2000’s when it was giant. We had a stack of them next to the shitter, They were in the upstairs toilet not the downstairs one which was for my parents. These mags were in the toilet me and my brother used, this was before phones or anything like that, so I remember my legs falling asleep many times looking at those. They were so fucking big and there were so many ads. I really liked the ads too. Looking back on it so many would have been trash. I clearly remember loving this Vans ad which was a complete cartoon, it was this space skater with these huge Vans on and I thought it was so cool. Looking back now through an adult marketing perspective it’s crazy how lost they were at that time with this cartoon space skater. It must have been working though because I’m talking about it now. I can’t remember the exact first mag but I remember specific pages from those Transworlds. I would rip the pages out and put them on my wall.
From cutting out pages to the cover of Transworld Issue 389 in 2017. PH: Matt Price
First skate crew and first spot you localised?
I don’t think we had a name but my first skate crew consisted of Jack O’Halloran and Ryan Pament who lived in my neighbourhood. My first real skate crew was me and Harry Clark, he is the main person I grew up skating with. He was part of my wedding with my brother, and I went to his, I’ve known Harry the longest. Leo Sharp shot a sequence of my oldest friend Harry Clark doing a front shuv-back nosegrind-nollie flip out in the middle of a ledge at WoolStores in Perth. He is the first person I skated with. We played Australian rules football together, then we started skating together and quit the same football team we met through.
The first crew would be the guys who lived near me though, Jack and Ryan. We localised three spots we called the Holy Trinity. South Perth Primary School, the Library, and the corner shop we would go to. We would just do a lap through those three. That was the program after school. You would call someone’s parents house but if they didn’t answer you would check those spots. The primary school was closest to me, if no-one was there I’d skate to the library hoping they hadn’t been kicked out already. Then we would end up at the shop afterwards, buy lollies, and go home.
The Australian rules football thing has come full-circle. I’ve just signed up for the fundraiser at my daughter’s school. It’s a parents football game against the other local primary school. I’ve just ordered Nike boots through the thing they give Nike SB team riders and I’m going training on Sunday. We’ve got the game in August. I’m going to be talking a lot of shit hopefully, they keep saying it’s a friendly game but hopefully there’s some banter.
First coverage?
I’m pretty sure it was a front nose shot by Dave Chami on this A-frame rail. Such a deadline photo, a fisheye front nose on something high. I’m sure there is New Zealand slang where a photo of a front nose is a “frontside deadline” hahaha, you just bang it in on some high ledge, put a fisheye in there and it looks good. I was wearing this vertical striped polo shirt I got from the op shop and I thought it was so fucking sick but it was so trash. Dave Chami also shot me doing a frontside 50-50 on this handrail that I always looked at that was near my parent’s place. That was the second photo that came out. We shot that at night, I was really proud of that one. The front nose was like a soft opening, the front 50 was something I had thought about for what felt like eternity. It felt way more of a big deal shooting it at night. I had a chain and I was hoping you would see the chain catch the light of the flash. It was shot on film so I didn’t find out if that had happened till way later. I was a kid, he didn’t email it to me or anything. The first time I saw it was when it was in the magazine but I had been thinking about whether you could see my chain or not for months. In my mind I knew exactly what it looked like. Dave Chami shot my first photos, I remember the Polaroid he used to test for the Hasselblad as well.
“The first time I saw it was when it was in the magazine but I had been thinking about whether you could see my chain or not for months”
Nick Boserio’s first published photos. Frontside deadline and frontside 50-50. PH: Dave Chami
First sponsor?
It has to have been Folklore I guess, I ragged on them in a Bunt interview, in a fun way. My friend Harry Clark got on first. I was desperately jealous for about two months until I started getting free boards too. It was a young, super local team and we would get a board a month. Folklore, a small board brand, the first sponsor for many Western Australian skateboarders.
First skate video you rinsed?
We would go over to Ryan Pament’s house, he had lots of videos and his parents were super fucking cool. That’s where we would hang out, he was the designated friend whose house we would watch videos at. Jack [O’Halloran] would get shit loads of videos too because his parents spoilt him a bit more than the rest of us. Between the two of them we had fuck loads of videos to watch on repeat at Pamo’s house. For me personally the first video I ever got was for Christmas and it was Transworld Video Radio, I rinsed that video so hard. It had the tour, the talking, the Muska.
The first photo I obsessed over was from a Muska article in Transworld that was super filtered and sepia toned. It was him in Vegas and there was a photo of him kickflipping over an oil barrel out of a really whip, small bump. It had the story of all the kids chasing him in Germany which is in that video. I watched it so much [John] Rattray has that incredible kickflip to fakie. It repeats all of the [Tom] Penny tricks about three times, they’re in the credits. The switch 360 hippy jump, the nollie hardflip over the hip in the dust where he’s wearing Shell Toes, it was the sickest.
Kickflip in Melbourne for the muska. PH: Zach Malfa-Kowalski
First pro you saw in real life?
Ben Stevens, he was a big figure in Western Australia and Australia in general, he had covers of the mags here. I saw him at that same local primary school I was talking about earlier. He was skating there at the weekend and my mum had asked me to go out and get her something from the corner shop. To get there I would cut through the school, I didn’t even put socks on, I just wanted to get this shit for my mum and get back to watching TV or whatever, doing absolutely nothing. When I walked through I saw they had set up this picnic table down this long kind of amphitheatre four that was there.
“It was the first time I had seen someone I know from a video, at a place I skated also. It was all three dimensional for the first time”
I had no shame, I was pretty young, I’ve probably got no shame now but I went up to them and said “oh my god, can I skate with you guys? I’ve got to get milk for my mum from the shop but I’ll drop it off and then I’ll come back and try and skate the picnic table with you”. They were nice enough to say “sure, I guess” even though he was there filming a trick. When I got back he was gone and I was heartbroken. I saw Ben Stevens at other points in my life and he was a pretty mind-blowing talent when I look back on it. But yeah, they were skating South Perth Primary and I was so excited. I don’t even remember what he was trying but I was mind blown they were there. It was the first time I had seen someone I know from a video, at a place I skated also. It was all three dimensional for the first time.
First person who took you under their wing?
Brandon from City Beach was probably the first person, teaching us to grip boards and stuff. There was also a guy called Ben Menzies, as a joke we called him Bentor because he was like my mentor. He took me under his wing in a way as well as a group of people associated with this sneaker shop called Highs And Lows that’s still going now actually. Him, Yuta Tanaka, Matt Thomas, and Ben Campbell were the first people who were older who we hung out with. They were really cool to me and showed me new music. They all had cars and would take us out to the bar. Not to say that’s taking you under their wing but Ben Menzies was definitely looking out for me, he’s the person who got me on Insight clothing. That company ended up having English riders like Paul Shier and Vauhan Baker.
The story goes that Ben wanted to ride for Stussy at the time, and we both rode for the same shop Highs And Lows. He had an offer from Insight or knew about it being an option. So he suggested that I ride for Insight instead and he would try and get on Stussy.
Nick Boserio’s first visit to London as an adult. Backside 50-50 on an Insight trip in 2007. PH: Dave Chami
First trip memory of the UK outside of infancy?
I was born in the UK. My dad worked for Shell and he was an expat at the time, it was where he was working when I was born. We moved to India soon after that, then Oman, and then Indonesia. We eventually settled back where my mum is from in Perth. So that’s the reason I was there when I was born but the next visit after that would have been my first trip with Insight. We went to London and to Barcelona. I got to go to Japan as well, Insight booked a big round trip thing because there was an Australia trip through Skateboarders Journal to Japan. This was the first time I ever had any travel budget so they paid for those flights. They flew me and Ben Baretto to Japan, London, and Barcelona and Dave Chami was shooting the whole trip. [Paul] Shier was on one and super hilarious at that point in his life, we were with [Daniel] Shimizu, and JJ Rousseau, it was a lot of fun.
First visit to Slam City Skates?
It would have been with Paul [Shier] on that Insight trip. We got curry on Brick Lane in the restaurant with the Princess Diana painting on the wall. We did a lot of key things, I remember Vaughan [Baker] skating the high ledge at Parliament Square where you can see Big Ben in the background. We did a lot of London tourism and went into Slam to sort something out. It was raining and we drank in the pub near the shop [The Cross Keys], it was the very last night you were allowed to smoke cigarettes indoors.
First thing you think of when you think of London?
I think of South Bank honestly. I just read that Will Miles article you guys put out there talking about Kyle Wilson’s switch heelflip. That skate spot is the first thing I think of.
First trip to the US?
I think my first ever trip was to stay with Jose Rojo. I had been getting flow from enjoi and he got me to go out and stay with him in San Jose and we did a trip from there to San Diego. That was my first time in the US. It was my tryout trip for enjoi which I absolutely blew. It went shit, I skated alright, the footage looked okay but I fucked that one up.
“For the first four years in a row I was here we all got together and went for the full 90 day visa. Anyone who was sponsored, could get it together, or had someone in the US they knew, just went”
When I turned 20 I moved to Melbourne. For the first four years in a row I was here we all got together and went for the full 90 day visa. Anyone who was sponsored, could get it together, or had someone in the US they knew, just went. When it was winter here we would just leave and figure it out. Dane Burman was already riding for Zero at this point so people would crash at Black Box, Geoff Campbell, Kirksy [Jack Kirk], and everyone. This is before I even rode for Zero. Black Box would end up distributing Insight later on but this is before any of that shit. That was the first time I met Jon Fitzgerald who is from Florida and Alabama. He is the Australian Vans team manager now which is crazy, he lives here now and has done for ages.
I can’t remember the first trip exactly, they are all mashed in together but I would have gone there for three months straight the first year I lived in Melbourne. Black Box was a certainty as far as somewhere to stay. We had friends in New York too. We got to know Rob Harris who does Alltimers now through Zach Malfa-Kowalski who is an awesome New York photographer. He came out here to Australia maybe through Bryce Golder, we knew him so we planned to go and see them out there. We knew a bunch of people who had gone and crashed in New York for a long time. Callum Paul had gone out there and crashed for ages so we knew you could always go to New York and someone would put up with you, you could figure it out. So we had a place we could be, we could start somewhere in San Diego. Then you could easily get an internal flight from there, get to someones couch in New York, and figure that out too. We were on that three month trip program every year for four years up until I moved to the States.
Latter day NYC visit. Early Polar advert from 2016 featuring Brittney Boserio artwork. PH: Alex Pires
First time you felt comfortable with your career and the direction you were going?
There were lots of times where I felt proud or happy when I was sponsored. Feeling comfortable as a person within the industry or with a career came way later. The first sponsor to open things up for me was Insight. The first time I felt comfortable though was probably when I moved to the States and I signed to Nike SB properly. Chris Middlebrook is someone I haven’t brought up yet. We have managed to get through those firsts, and the taking me under their wing question without speaking about Middsy but he was there for pretty much everything. He was team manager for Nike SB Australia for about a decade-and-a-half.
He was the link to me beginning to get [Alien] Workshop boards, he was the person who introduced me to Jason Dill and helped make that Life Splicing thing happen. He eventually gave me the kick up the arse, the stepping stone, and the help I needed to move to the US with my wife Brittney. Once I was in America with a green card, riding for Zero, and getting paid real money from Nike that was when I felt comfortable and it felt like something, it was basically nothing until then, nothing until it was something, I was working jobs before that, it was just something I was wasting my time on because I loved it. Only once it was actually my job did I feel comfortable in the space where it’s supposed to be your job.
First road trip you would relive given the chance?
The greatest road trip I ever went on was the cross-country Zero Summer tour. We did everything, fireworks, throwing boards off vans, shit demos, generator skate spots. There’s no way at 35 that I want to relive that fucking tour though, not a chance! I’d want to relive the first road trip I ever went on with my wife. We drove a van down the Great Ocean Road out here. I would happily do that again, we could do it with our kids. That was a lovely trip, we had a camper van you could sleep in and we just drove and parked wherever.
Three of Nick’s earliest ads for Polar. Photos by Alex Pires and Matt Price.
First concert you ever went to?
I don’t even know what the first one was, I saw a bunch of music while out partying but never went to big shows when I was a kid. I saw Charles Bradley in San Diego a while back with my wife and it was fucking unreal. That was a visceral experience, the most impacted I’ve ever been by a live music situation so I’m just going to say that one. He was like a preacher, like a god up there on that stage, it was crazy. I was with people afterwards who see a lot of live music and they were saying that was something different for them too.
First place outside of Australia you could imagine living at this point in your life?
At this point in my life? I can’t even imagine moving down the street. It was so hard to move back here from the States once we had children and everything. We could’t even bring our dog Leonard, our friends had to adopt him. Melbourne is one of the most liveable cities in the world, It’s got good public transport, a good vibe, good scene, and people are way less at each other than elsewhere in Australia. If I was in a position where I could live the life that Hjalte [Halberg] lives then maybe. He lives in inner Copenhagen, his parents have a garden house, he can buy his apartment because he’s Danish and the socialist housing scheme supports that. I would do that, I can imagine riding bikes around Copenhagen with my children. I’m sure winter is harsh, I’ve only been there in the summer but it seems like a good lifestyle. Basically I want Hjalte’s life, make cider, ride around on bikes, and be good at manuals. Copenhagen seems like a very liveable city but I don’t want to move anywhere.
First defunct spot you would love to revive and revisit?
It’s not relevant at all and it wasn’t that great but I missed the opportunity to talk about my second skate crew and the pace we did completely localise. It was called Aussie Place, it was Australia Place in Perth once we started going into the city every day at the weekends. I have beautiful, formative childhood skate memories from there, and it had good flatground. There was a three stair, an undercover section, stairs going down a hill that went from a four to a six, and a ride on grind next to them. I filmed a slappy back tail there actually, that’s probably the only thing I filmed there during the internet era.
I’d bring Australia Place back because I feel the city doesn’t really have that same space. Remember when Sundays were just empty in the city? We had this big empty space everyone met at. Now I can’t even imagine somewhere that’s not swarmed with people. The State Library in Melbourne is somewhere I remember being on Sundays that was dead, you can’t even go there at 2 in the morning on a Sunday now without there being 400 people at every cross, it’s crazy.
Slappy backside tailslide evolution in melbourne. PH: Zach Malfa-Kowalski
First video part you put out that you felt best represented you?
I guess honestly it would be the Life Splicing part. I had other footage that had come out at that point but that part is where I’m skating like a grown up.
First trick that comes to mind as being a sketchy moment?
There’s a lot. I ollied the rail at the Concert Hall in Perth which is a famous giant set of stairs at the concert hall which Andrew Brophy also ollied and the photo came out in a magazine. I used to jump down some shit, there’s been some sketchy stuff with cars too. There was flat gap I was skating where I got hit by a car that was already braking. I thought I could just ollie the flat gap without looking and the car hit me but I didn’t get slammed. There are a few things which were probably a bad idea, I can’t remember the ones from when I was really young but I feel like I made a lot of bad decisions back then, haha.
“It hurt but the pain went away and I figured I should try again before it gets really sore later…when I landed it I had a torn ACL”
Actually there is one thing I did early on that was bit sketchy looking back on it. When I did my knee the first time I was doing a half cab crooks on a dumpster off a loading dock. I was trying it for a long time and turned really weird on one to bail it, I didn’t know it at the time but that tore my ACL. It hurt but the pain went away and I figured I should try again before it gets really sore later. My friend Yuta [Tanaka] said something encouraging so I went for it. I did the half cab crooks, but when I landed it I had a torn ACL, then I went and sat on my friends floor for three hours and by the time I went to get up my leg wouldn’t even move. That seems insane now, I’ve done my knee since then and I can’t imagine doing anything afterwards. I don’t know what I was thinking at all, but that was definitely sketchy.
First encounter with Pontus?
I first met Pontus in Paris, we did a tryout trip. Once I had spoken to Hjalte [Halberg] and Pontus [Alv] I flew out to Paris, they were already in the middle of a Polar trip. Pontus and Paul [Grund] came to meet me at the Airbnb when I dropped my bags off. Pontus was with us on that whole trip, I remember him cooking spaghetti for everyone really fast. I also remember him eating hard boiled eggs that weren’t boiled enough in the morning when I was hungover which was quite an experience, hahaha. That’s when we first met, that was a secret trip at the time, I was still on Zero. It was Hjalte’s idea for me to come there and just see how it is. I asked Scuba [Steve Chalme] to book the flights so I flew out that night and arrived the next day. I had already lived in Portland at that point and I hadn’t spoken to Dane [Brady] about it. I had skated with him a week earlier, and now there I was in Paris, just showed up.
Nick snaps an ollie for his wife’s lens. PH: Brittney Boserio
Last skate video that warranted a re-watch?
Back to South Bank I just watched Casper [Brooker]’s Cathedral part that he made with Jacob [Harris] again. I watched it a couple of times when it first came out, and even some stuff that I really like doesn’t always get a second watch. But this was one recently where I punched it into search to watch it and wasn’t prompted by anything. I watched 7 Ball more than once too which just came out, I watched it again when reading that Will Miles thing on your blog.
Last trick you were stoked on riding away from?
I did this ollie close to my house that’s going to come out soon and I was really fucking stoked on that. It was a lot of work to make it happen because this place is fucking insane.
Last film you saw?
I watch the same movies constantly. Maybe Ponyo which is a Japanese cartoon from Studio Ghibli. I really liked that, I bought Ponyo toys for my children when I was in Japan. It’s one I enjoy and I encourage my children to watch it. It’s about a fish who turns into a girl and she has magical powers. Even if I didn’t watch this 100 times with my children I would watch it as a human being on my own.
Last book you read?
I haven’t read a book in a couple of years and I used to find time to read books sometimes. The last one I read was one my mum got for me about a lighthouse keeper, it’s set in Australia and it’s called The Light Between Oceans. Maybe before that it would have been 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. I have read Goose Goes to School many times, that’s the last book I read.
Last album you played from start to finish?
Technically the last thing I listened to all the way through was a Chris Rock standup album because someone talked about it. The last thing I listened to all the way through was an album by Goblin, their music is in old horror movies.
Last concert you went to?
I don’t know but I’m going to go and see Sasha Colby and Anetra this Friday, I’m going to a drag show. They are drag queen stars from RuPaul’s Drag Race, they are recent winners. It’s the first proper drag show I’m going to go to, I’m going with wife and we are fucking hyped. Their show is meant to be unreal, so it’s not the last but it’s the next.
Last thing you saw happen in the flesh that blew you away?
My eldest daughter has been having a lot of trouble with food and she just voluntarily tried some beans. She hasn’t wanted to try a new food without being blackmailed into it for about a full year. So a sixth of her life so far, which is a long time. She just munged about thirty black beans mixed with other food, which is also insane for her, at dinner tonight about two hours ago. I just told her that she blew me away. My child eating black beans at dinner is the answer.
Nick’s eldest daughter centre stage on his latest Polar pro model. PH: Brittney Boserio
Last purchase that has improved your life?
I don’t really like buying things. I bought a membership to Brunswick Baths, the local swimming pool. That has improved my life a lot. I go there on my own and go there with my family too, it’s great.
Last Polar mission?
We went to Japan not long ago and it was unreal. Thank you to anyone involved with the Kukunochi distribution in Japan. Thanks to Shin [Sanbongi], Marimo [Ohyama], Uru (Masanori Uruma], and every single person who was around them and interacted with us in any way at all. It was so lovely. We were showed around by a guy called EZ who was filming too, it was awesome.
Last hardware tweak that has improved skateboarding?
I took my pro wheel to a metal worker, a friend of mine who is a metal engineer. He put it on a lathe and cut 4mm off it. So it went from a big Slimeball-shaped 60mm wheel down to the widest 56mm wheel ever. Instead of me riding the 60mm wheels for four months and suffering as they wear down he just cut them down to size on this lathe and it’s a dream come true.
I’ve just got a box of Slimeballs because I ran out of my pro wheel. They’re two durometers softer but other than that they’re the same shape. I’m going to take these to him and get them cut down again next week. I’m fucking into it and I’m going to try and get them to make this shape, I sent the samples to the NHS office in Santa Cruz. I just like that huge riding surface, that’s my recent tweak, cutting wheels down with John Hall.
Last random encounter that made your day?
Muhammad my taxi driver. I came back from Copenhagen with a really fucked up bacterial infection in my elbow. It was a horrible plane flight and I went straight from the airport to the emergency department at the hospital where they put me on a drip and antibiotics. They give you taxi vouchers instead of you getting in an Uber, you’re technically still a hospital patient but they send you home and then a nurse comes out to visit. So I had to get back to the hospital for blood samples and to get discharged and they give you a taxi voucher to get there.
Muhammad was my driver and he was out of his mind but so lovely. I have him saved in my phone, he did my taxi ride both ways. He called me multiple times while I was in there to make sure I was still keen for the lift back home. I bought him a coffee. He told me if I wasn’t in a rush he would have stopped somewhere to buy me one because he was feeling it so I bought him one on the way out of there. He insisted on giving me cash for it and he was so funny. He told me that god had brought us together so that I would try and have another child which is insane, there is no way on earth. He has ten children and was telling me I should have another. He was a very funny, positive, memorable, and inspiring person. That guy was fantastic.
Last thing you did for the last time?
There’s this one pan in my house and all the shit gets stuck in it. I was thinking about bringing it back because it’s the same as the other pans but I’m never cooking in that thing again. I burned all the food for lunch today, I’m going to throw that thing out.
Last person who inspired you to learn a trick?
I learned back 3’s, backside 360 ollies because of Bryce Golder. The only other person who has specifically made me want to learn a trick is Adam Morris at Australia Place. That’s who made me learn frontside half cab flips. I even got the same shoes as him so I could learn it.
Nick ollies into a tight spot for this Polar ad from 2021. Shot by back three inspo Bryce Golder
Last piece of good advice you received?
I can’t even remember exactly what he said but Muhammad left me with a lasting impression to really appreciate what I’ve got.
Last moment that made you trip out on where you’re at?
It happens a lot honestly, it seems like a pretty unique position I get to be in for lots of different reasons.
Last new place you visited you’d like to spend more time?
Hokkaido in Japan. We went to Sapporo in Hokkaido and had soup curry. It’s where the beer comes from and they had special beer for the island, and a special Spring edition of that beer, double limited edition Sapporo beer. We were there in golden week, that place felt like it needed more time spent there for sure.
Last new hobby to enter your life?
Swimming laps. I didn’t like doing it as a kid, didn’t like it as an adult. When I started trying to do it I didn’t like it but for some reason I wanted to keep going. Now I can swim a kilometre without stopping. I went swimming today, my life-improving purchase was that membership to the pool. I like swimming laps a lot, that’s something which has stuck, I started three years ago.
Last person to come and visit you in Australia?
My dad lives in New Zealand and he came out here to see us last weekend. He lives in Wānaka. We did a skate trip out there not that long ago which should come out soon.
Last piece of skateboard media you ingested and enjoyed?
I read an article about publications on Quartersnacks, it was about starting magazines in this day and age. It was talking about Closer and Mess magazine, I really enjoyed reading that.
Last trick you battled for?
You know what was a My War moment that goes by pretty fast in the video? I want to gas it up because it was such an obstacle in my head and it just flies by. In Sounds Like you guys are Crushing it I do a frontside 50-50 on this yellow hubba that has a kink at the end of it. I had claimed that trick ages ago the first time I was in Copenhagen. There was a big set of tiles missing though, I said I wanted to grind it but we needed to fill in the gap. I put it off on that first trip and never did it but me and Tao [Tor Ström] would occasionally talk about it.
Some psychological warfare was required to tackle this Danish hubba for the Polar video
“on my second trip out there he sent me a photo of it about a month before I arrived with the tiles filled in perfectly”
It had been so long, but on my second trip out there he sent me a photo of it about a month before I arrived with the tiles filled in perfectly. Then we ended up having an Airbnb on that street so we would drive by it at least twice a day. I’d be regularly looking at this massive hubba four years later. I’d had a fucking knee surgery by then but I’d claimed it for that long, and he’d filled in the thing before I got there so I claimed it again. Then I had spent all this time looking at it and put it off till the second-to-last day.
I don’t usually roll up to things a bunch of times but it took ages to pull the trigger on the first try. I did get absolutely rat-fuck -pummelled into the ground a bunch of times to do it so it was a My War situation, the psychological lead up to it made it even more. I go nuts with my friends after that because it took a lot, there was no way out and I had to commit from the beginning. There was no way to test it which was fucking me over. Four years in the making makes that one a mental My War.
Last thing you did for the first time?
The last thing I did for the first time was miss out on snacking so I could do a phone interview at 10 o’clock at night. I’m sitting in my car, my wife has ordered chicken wings and they’ve just shown up. This is the first time I’ve put anything before chicken wings.
Last thing skateboarding brought to the table you think the world needs more of these days?
I think skating fucks with what people are comfortable with and I think people need more of that. It will be loud or a lady will be a little bit scared because someone skated past them. My initial reaction to that would always be to apologise but what the fuck else of note was going to happen to that person today? What else were they going to talk about with their friends later? She’ll go back to her office and have something to whinge to Susan about. It’s disruptive without hurting anyones feelings. I feel with most things we’re supposed to not be disruptive at all or they’re disruptive, destructive, and shitty for people.
Skateboarding is something that’s happening that fucks with the usual things people are comfortable with, without being some horrible thing that’s meant to be offensive. It’s something different happening in the real world that forces itself into the reality of other peoples lives a bit. It’s something, there’s a lot of shit that’s nothing that people experience every day. It happens in public, in a real life space, it makes movement, it makes noise and it’s out there for people to see. It’s like a free show for them to take in if they want to. There’s not much like that going on, people are mostly sitting on a train with earphones, it’s the opposite to that and that’s what I think skating is good for.
photography by Zach Malfa-Kowalski and Brittney Boserio
Last words?
Thank you for reading if you made it this far.
Thanks to Nick Boserio for the time he spent talking to us. Thanks also to Dave Chami and Zach Malfa-Kowalski for contributing photos. Thanks also to Polar Skate Co for archived ads and assets. Shop with us for Nick’s latest pro board and more from Polar Skate Co.
Previous First & Last interviews: Jarrad Carlin, Colin Kennedy, Henry Sanchez, Mike York, Amanda Perez, Mark Gonzales, Lance Mountain, Brian Anderson, Danny Brady, Wade DesArmo